Source: Review Copy
Price: £11.39
Where To Get It: Steam

Ah, Carl Jung and David Lynch. One an odd student of Sigmund Freud’s, whose theory of the Shadow (the unconscious, unknown part of ourselves, which we both strive against and come to acknowledge) inspired quite a few dream based media. One a film-maker well known for his surrealism, and, of course, Twin Peaks. Which, itself, inspired Stranger Things, and that last part, as well as elements of the soundtrack to the game showing similarities, is why, if you watch a Let’s Play of this game, Stranger Things gets mentioned. It’s the most recent thing someone can point to that it’s “Like.”

So, The Inner Friend is a puzzle game with horror elements, because what the protagonist (depicted as broken and incomplete) deals with is fears. Traumas in surreal, dream-like form. School, where the teachers can seem like monsters, and the books and educational television shows seem to drain our life. A museum, symbolic of our anxious and self critical nature, our damaged nature for all the world to gawk at, while our damaged self scans and finds wanting… Our damaged self.

Of course, these are just interpretations. That’s the thing about symbolic representations in a surrealist dreamscape… But the facts that they are a dreamscape, and they are the products of someone in pain, trying to comfort their Shadow… To acknowledge them.

However, part of a dream is not knowing the rules of the dream. So each area, while it has a single puzzle type you repeat a few times, is a different puzzle in each area. And the game does some interesting things. Despite being a linear experience, it gives that dreamlike illusion of nonlinearity by turning you back on yourself, making the path forward be the way you came, and giving you the impression that which lit window you take to the next world, which of the buildings twirling in the void you visit, even matters. All roads lead to the next dream. There is a second cutscene at the end if you collect all of the objects in each dream (Listen for the tinkles. Always listen for the tinkles), but its original ending still interests.

The music is good, the visuals are good, the soundscapes are bewildering (aka good) and, generally speaking, there’s clear hints leading you through what you’re meant to do, which is good. It even does some fun visual tricks in some areas, like the fish-eye lensing in the museum. Less good is that the camera can be a little wilful at times, that I experienced a hang on trying to enter the third dream (I got past it, but it is a bug I encountered), and… Well, not so much less good as an interesting choice is that it frontloads its more difficult puzzles early. By the time of the hospital, what you want to be doing is pretty well communicated.

So, would I recommend it overall? Well, I’m a bit jaded on the horror front, so I can’t really say anything did more than somewhat unsettle me, and chase segments merely feel… Well, like chase segments. Try real hard to focus on the objective, don’t look at the gribbley, got it, done. But it definitely unsettles in places, and it is an interesting game, so, overall? Yeah, I’d recommend this. If you’re turned off by short games, yup, it’s pretty short, jog on, but if that isn’t a turnoff, and you find an hour or two of an interesting experience worth more than 30 hours of a bland one, then yes, this is an interesting experience.

The Mad Welshman can’t really say that he’s fully up on his Jungian Psychology. But he does enjoy some David Lynch.

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Source: Supporter Gift
Price: £16.99
Where To Get It: Steam

Ah, the game that has been colloquially called XCOP (and other, lewder names, thanks to our old friends, the serpents.) It’s been talked about for a little while now, and, to be fair, the XCOM rebooted series has definitely made for some interesting times (I really should do an XCOM 2 Going Back at some point, missed the boat on that one.)

It’s interesting to see how similar the basic formula is, and yet… It adds little touches I find interesting, and pretty fitting.

The general story is as follows: Congratulations, the war is over, and now, aliens and humans live in… Relative harmony in a place called City 31, one of the most diverse cities on the planet! And then it starts going to shit, when a hostage situation by whiny bigoted shitbags who otherwise wouldn’t have the power to cause a hostage situation ends up with the mayor rescued… And then immediately blown up by a plasma bomb. On the first official operation of Chimera Squad.

Well, shit.

There are three gangs suspected, a bunch of psionics who believe they see the true future of City 31, a set of Muton scavengers and weapons dealers who are collecting Elerium for… Reasons? And religious alien-human hybrids, who preach salvation for, er… Non X-COM supporters. Each of them has the potential to be the real bad, but I suspect the real answer is “None of them, something nastier’s in the woodshed.”

Can’t really say, even though I’ve been playing it avidly, it has only been a day or two since release.

What I can say is, apart from cutscenes being motion comics rather than fully rendered scenes, for the most part, aesthetically, it’ll be something you easily recognise. Right down to fucking tiny back buttons. Tip: Right mouse is “Back one step in a menu”, as well as move. Still annoying. In any case, the aesthetic of the models remains largely the same, except… Ohhhh yeah, since it’s a diverse city, and this is a new team called Chimera Squad… There are aliens on your squad. Pretty friendly ones, all told. Except Torque, the snake lady, who is a snarky, irritable woman. In place of classes, there are the field agents, each with their own unique skill tree, specialties, and lines on recruitment and during story time. It definitely helps give that more down to earth, personal feel.

The other thing that gives that down to earth, personal feel, as well as a higher degree of risk management, is that no, unless you have enough agents to back you up, or androids… You are all alone, and every bleedout hurts. Every death is to be avoided at all costs. And, of course, you are cops. Rescuing civilians gets you small bonuses. Taking in perps alive gets you intel, one of the three valuable resources, and is worth more score-wise than dead. Good luck with that, although it can be do-able on even the big-ass Legionnaires, Mutons who still have their old power armour. Each mission is spread into a series of breaches, and, with each breach, things get hotter.

So, it’s an interesting riff on the established formula, there’s some good, tense moments, difficulty adjustments, the usual fun stuff, and, thank fuck, a restart mission and a restart encounter button. I’m enjoying it quite a bit, and I think XCOM fans and turn based strategy fans will too.

The Mad Welshman loves a good action movie sequence. Maybe, one day, we’ll have turn-based games that turn your mission replay into one. Ah heck, the game’s good enough without.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £12.39
Where To Get It: Steam

Other Reviews: Early Access 1 Release Review

Rogues. We love them. Or hate them. It really depends on which party got backstabbed. And this is the latest addition to Spellsword Cards: Dungeon Top (Stop snickering!), a card based strategy game where the cards summoned are units, your hero is a unit too, and if your hero dies, you lose, good job, start over… And if their hero in a fight dies… Congrats, you won a fight.

And our old friend incremental unlocks, where winning gets you resources to get more stuff, which may help you win… So on. Aesthetically, it’s pretty nice, some dramatic, tense music, some cool painted faces for the assorted minions and hero(in)es, and…

…Sigh. A menu UI that’s still small, with no scaling option. It’s been what, [insert time here], folks? Come on, I know your dungeon door is pretty, but you can make the menu options bigger than that.

In any case, play still revolves around a deck themed around the Hero/Faction dichotomy, where some cards are unique, others are general, and the themes are obvious. The Karim remain the faction which eats itself for power, sacrificing minions to make the few glorious murderbastards. Helm, meanwhile, has the philosophy of “Build ’em up slow, take the enemy down.” And the Warrior, Mage, and Rogue? Well, they stab hard, throw spells, and sneakily take down the enemy, respectively.

Okay, the rogue, being a new addition, needs a little more detail: His weapons come in melee and ranged flavours, but if you can get throwing knives (giving you multistrike at higher levels), go for them, and build around them. Because knockback is a thing, and knockback damage is a thing, the rogue can do well as a ranged murderer supreme, mainly needing his minions as meatshields. Or they can go all out on certain spells, and get through a fair few fights making the minions or the boss hit each other (and get free attacks from your own units.) They fight quick, and they fight decisively, one way or the other.

You will fail at first. It’s one of those games. But from each battle, you learn an enemy’s (pretty fixed) patterns. You learn how to beat them. In a way, it’s more of a puzzle game than a strategy one, although the random element does make it more “Hrm, of these five cards, which three of these do I apply to most effectively murder this giant golem that runs pretty quickly, attacks all units around it once every two turns, and will murder even my strongest warriors without too much hassle (and me with only slightly less)?”

Because yes, you have limited amounts of cards you can play in a turn, although some level up choices can make that more reasonable, as can some treasures.

How does it feel? Well, it feels much the same as when I last reviewed it: It’s an interesting game, it’s got a good aesthetic, it still needs to make those menu options bigger, and with a new area of the game added to boot, it’s got its rough difficulty curve laid out. It also has a draft option, allowing you to build a specific deck, seeds, and adding threat, so… Overall, it’s looking pretty promising!

Hi devs. Decent size on them main menu buttons, ta. Right now, it’s my only crit.

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Price: £19.49
Where To Get It: Steam
Previous Reviews: Early Access 1

There is perhaps nothing more satisfying than riddling demons with holes with dual wielded SMGs. The kickback, the satisfying noise, the rapid thuds followed by the larger thud (or boom) as the monstrosity from another dimension finally keels over. In your imagination, of course, because while there’s bullet trails in Jupiter Hell (allowing you to see just how much ammo you wasted murdering them), death animations aren’t really that impressive, nor do they need to be.

Oh. Wait. There is perhaps nothing more satisfying than seeing the sizzling holes, melting a demon piece by piece, with dual wielded plasma SMGs. I stand corrected.

What I’m saying is, 0.8.8, the Dual Wield update for Jupiter Hell, has a feature that’s pretty damn satisfying, even if it has some qualifiers, like “You get this cool thing if you survive your first three level ups”, “It will still take up two weapon slots”, “Remember how you had that ammo problem? It will chew through ammo faster”, and “Only Marines and Scouts get this. Sorry Techies.”

Of course, it’s not the only change, although hacking turrets feels… A little underwhelming, as an example. Find the computer terminal on a level, spend 3 of the new combo armour replacement/hacking items, the multitool, and bam, turrets are… Deactivated, seemingly. Since I’ve never seen a turret shoot someone, and they have an ammo drop next to them, that’s basically what I assume, anyways. I mean, it makes levels slightly easier?

Anyway, yes, I forgot, all this time, to say what Jupiter Hell is, for the folks in the back. Jupiter Hell is a turn-based roguelike, heavily inspired by Doom (Its spiritual predecessor actually was Doom: The Roguelike, and it was only Bethesda’s litigiousness, in spite of Id Software being cool with it, even flattered, that it is not called DoomRL2 today.) Actions like moving, reloading, firing… All take a certain amount of time, and the enemies, similarly, work on a timer. Diagonal movement costs two squares of movement, but moving doubles your chance of evading shots, so it’s valid to, when seeing a big old bundle of enemies, to book it to a safer position. Indeed, considering enemies will now hit cover when they see you most times, and only get out if you destroy it (sometimes possible) or lure them out (a risky move in some cases, but risk management is the name of the game.)

And how does all this feel? Well, easy mode feels pretty do-able, although you definitely have hairy moments. Normal is a roguelike experience, something that takes a fair amount of tactical thought to defeat… And, of course, there’s challenge modes. I don’t recommend challenge modes for the casual player, or the higher difficulties. But it is casual playthrough accessible, with relatively minimal unlocks for getting certain achievements.

It helps that it also looks and sounds pretty good. Shots sound satisfying, the clank of one of the chonky security robots is a sound that, once you know the enemy itself, makes you break into a cold sweat and hunt cautiously for both the robot and the best cover, the maps look pretty good for being tile based, quite atmospheric, and the music… Well, as with its inspiration, it veers between heavy, driving metal, and ominous, low tunes, setting the mood for each area. Oh, and then there’s the Marine/Scout/Techie, whose angry growls evoke that 90s protag feel, but in a way that’s not, like quite a few of the 90s FPS protags, a dickwad. Just a dude very, very angry that shit’s gone to hell.

So yeah, Jupiter Hell is getting closeish to release now, the devs have been very good about trying to balance it while maintaining interesting mechanics, and, while I don’t think they’re quite there yet, it’s a pretty good roguelike to start your entrance into the genre.

The Mad Welshman has nothing against demonic denizens. He just wished they’d stop trying to kill him.

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Price: £12.99
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At first, Endcycle Vs didn’t interest me, despite loving Megaman Battle Network’s combat system of a 3×6 grid, split in two, in which the player and their opponents use abilities (Chips, in the case of the player) to attack the enemy, a new hand coming when the old one is used. After all, it was multiplayer only, and not even mod support was going to bring me to that party.

But now, it has singleplayer and… Well, I’m somewhat bouncing off it, to be quite honest.

Mainly, it’s for a very simple reason: Everything is fast. And can seemingly move diagonally, although that may be just that they’re… Going really fast. In its inspiration, MegaMan Battle Network, things generally don’t move quickly. And the few enemies that do are considered the biggest pains in the ass in the series. Similarly, some moves where instant hits (known as hitscan), so you at least knew that, the moment you hit the fire button, something would get damaged.

And neither of these appear to be true, with the exception of swords, in Endcycle Vs. Spreadshots? Slowish projectiles. Cannons? Slowish projectiles. The “Rush” Sword is, in fact, a leisurely dodge. And grenade and trap type weapons both have a specific range, and are, generally speaking, slow. Meanwhile, enemies fast. Can you perhaps see the problem here?

Now, less a problem and more “Something different, to maybe get used to” is the fact that, instead of getting a new “hand” of chips once you’ve used the last, you have three sets of four chips, each with cooldowns, and you can switch between chips with the space key, and use one of those four chips with the arrow keys. Okay, cool. But what this, generally speaking, means is that you’re either waiting on a cooldown, or rapidly switching between ability sets. Now, you can set everything to attack chips, if you really want, but it’s good to have some sort of healing, some sort of defence, and some sort of area or panel grab chip, which makes neutral panels yours, or enemy patterns neutral. Because you can only move on neutral or your panels, so without those, you can get hemmed in.

Aesthetically, it’s alright. The music is good, light, but pumping beats for combat, a synth theme, various other tunes, all inspired by… Well, its inspiration. The spritework’s alright, the menus have a consistent font, and my main gripe is that it’s hard to parse cooldowns when you’re concentrating more on the enemy’s position rather than, y’know, you. Where the icons and their cooldown shaders are.

Overall, it’s very obviously designed for the Pro E-Sports crowd, balanced around people who are twitchier, more timing aware, and fine with longish matches because they’re darting around so damn much. But that definitely isn’t for me, and I don’t particularly see it being appealing to more than a niche crowd within the niche that is people who like this sort of battle game overall, and the people who, like me, loved a game boy advance series from way back when.

There are other games like this in my future. And so, I don’t actually have all that much interest in coming back to this.

The Mad Welshman lives in the cyberworld. He has to admit, it’s a somewhat dull place. You get used to those rushing neon comets quite quickly.

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